First Day Of Aintree

*Garryleigh - N/R 2.45pm Taunton*
*Close House - N/R 5.25pm Aintree* 

Today there are four meetings taking place, two over the sticks at Aintree and Taunton as well as two all-weather flat cards at Lingfield and Wolverhampton.  Unsurprisingly the big meeting of the day is at Aintree as the first day of the 2013 Grand National fixture gets underway.  The stable has just one runner at Aintree, Arkle third His Excellency (pictured above) who has now pocketed over £100,000 in prize money by contesting all the big races.  We have plenty of runners at Taunton - Garryleigh, Zaynar, Water Garden, Weekend Millionair and Palace Jester.  It certainly looks like an interesting day, full of wide-open competitive races.

I will be making my annual pilgrimage up to Aintree this morning with David and we will be put up as per usual by Gino Paletta.  Gino has a half share in Cheltenham Festival winner The New One who bids to follow-up that success at Aintree today.  The Italian was in some state when The New One won at Cheltenham - he gets very nervous and has been seen to walk his box...that is Gino, not the horse!  There will be some celebration tonight if he can follow-up this afternoon.  I had better take it easy though as I wouldn't want to miss my favourite day of the meeting, Friday...Ladies' Day!

Sadly Famousandfearless ran no sort of race up at Wetherby yesterday afternoon and I am sure that this former Irish point-to-point winner is far better than he was able to show here.

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Barry Geraghty is the 7/4 favourite to be crowned top Aintree jockey and that could look generous.  He has a good book of rides for guv'nor Nicky Henderson and the incredible Sprinter Sacre should almost guarantee him a winner.

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I thought that Jamie Spencer was very good on Rainford Glory yesterday at Southwell.  He beat the 4/6 favourite Handwork by a very easy 1/2 length and looks to be one to kepp on the right side in the coming weeks.  Having said that, the jockey has certainly done no good to his chances of obtaining an honour - the runner-up was owned by Her Majesty The Queen!

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There are a few Europa League matches taking place this evening so expect Chelsea and Tottenham to play quite a few of their reserves.  It seems to me that there are a lot of managers who do not want to be in this competition!